"Hacking and Slashing and not much else - if that sounds good to you, go for it!"

I really, really wanted to like Diablo II. I've heard so many good things about it, people love to discuss to death the perfect set-up for each class, and so many are just absolutely addicted to it. Sadly, like a piece of really tasty, but unfulfilling candy, Diablo II just starts to wear thin after a while.

The plot of the game is simple: Diablo, one of the three Prime Evils, is on the loose once more and seems to be set on dominating the world yet again. Your job, obviously, is to stop him.

You can pick among several classes (Sorceror, Necromancer, Barbarian, Amazon, Paladin), all of whom offer fairly interesting ways to fight your way through the game. For example, the Barbarian is pretty much a melee master, the Sorceror has a bunch of long-range elemental attacks, and the Necromancer can summon hordes of minions to take out all and sundry.

And boy, will you be fighting. The gameplay consists of you starting out in a town, collecting various information from the residents, and then going out and searching for the next plot maguffin, all the while battling your way through hundreds upon thousands of enemies. The main joy of the game is finding loot and seeing if it's better than your current equipment. Since the way gear is dropped is random, there is often quite a significant dilemma in whether or not to change. Your current gear may have more defense (for physical attacks), but the new gear may have more elemental resistance, or give you a better chance of finding magical items, etc. Then you report back to town to sell your stuff and heal, and report back on the quest if you've finished it.

But really, that's it. That's the game. There are four acts, and each act has one starting town with NPCs that all fill the same roles. You can buy/sell armor, weapons, potions, magic scrolls, as well as hire a mercenary. The NPCs essentially function as a menu system for doing things when you get back to town. There's no role-playing, choices (let alone an evil option), puzzles, multiple ways to complete a quest, etc.

The cycle, per act, is:

1) Story gets dumped on you at town
2) Go out and fight your way through the world, looking for plot maguffin (to either take back to town or a monster to kill)
3) Your inventory (which is quite small) is full and you have to go back to town to sell stuff for money
4) Go back to #2, unless you've completed a quest, in which case a new quest/maguffin is introduced, so go back to #1.


I found the game to be somewhat addictive for a while, but after Act II or so, it just felt like I was some sort of medieval janitor of stupid monsters. By the time I got to Act IV, I just couldn't take it anymore and had to quit.

The one highlight of the game is the fantastic cut-scenes that play out before each act. These are really quite compelling and the very best of their time when Diablo II was released. Unfortunately, it can't make up for the repetitive game play.

However, if you want a pure dungeon crawler with a fairly intuitive and fun battle system, you could do worse.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/25/08

Game Release: Diablo II (US, 06/29/00)